Wix vs. Shopify: Which platform is better for you?

1. Ease of use

Both Shopify and Wix claim to be very beginner-friendly, they are quite different in building an online presence.

Wix is an all-in-one website builder perfect for those who need a professional-looking store but have little to no design and coding skills. Wix eCommerce features help you create blogs, articles, store descriptions, and About Us pages, with top-notch tutorials and helpful step-by-step guides.

The Wix editor allows merchants to create and manage content by simply clicking on a feature, such as an image, logo, or title, and dragging it wherever needed. Wix ADI artificial intelligence helps create a template in seconds.

Shopify eCommerce capabilities are perfect for larger stores and businesses emphasizing product management and selling. Features such as blogs and content management are available but are not the platform’s main focus.

Shopify has separate dashboard and editing systems, making you move back and forth between the preview mode and the final store face. Plenty of free templates make optimization and personalization easier.

When it comes to ease of use, Wix takes the cake. Wix stores might be more basic and simple than Shopify’s, but you can get them up and running in no time without the additional headache that comes with a complex eCommerce functionality.

2. Store management: eCommerce tools

Wix sites come equipped with the necessities. 

• Cart & Checkout. Streamlined, secure checkout, abandoned cart recovery, and express checkouts.
• Inventory Management. Inventory is automatically updated after every sale. In and out-of-stock status is up-to-date.
• Easy Payment Options. 50+ secure payment gateways, from their own solution to third-party processors like PayPal, Stripe, Square, and others, depending on location.
• Wix Mobile App. Monitor your store, edit pages, process orders, and track business analytics.

Shopify store owners get access to important features

• Inventory Management. Similar to Wix, Shopify tracks inventory and automatically updates stock status.
• Burst by Shopify. This tool gives access to the latest updates in stock photos, allowing merchants to add the latest trends to their product displays.

• Business Name Generator. Type keywords, and the generator comes up with multiple business names for your store.
• Finance Calculators. Shopify has tools to help manage your store’s finances, from ad campaigns to profit margins.
• Shopify App. Manage your store and orders away from the computer.

While most basic features are similar, Shopify wins for its focus on eCommerce. An extended toolkit offers a more diverse, professional look.

3. Pricing

Wix and Shopify both offer multiple monthly plans for different size stores and purposes. Let’s see which platform gives you the best offer for the right price.

Wix offers three eCommerce-friendly business plans from $27 to $159. Their pricing structure was updated in 2023 to include most of the Wix Ascend business suite functions after the suite was discontinued as a separate product.  

• Core ($17/month). Basic features include a free domain for a year, secure online payments, 50 GB of storage space, and unlimited bandwidth.
• Business ($32/month). All of the main features of the basic plan plus extra storage space (up to 100 GB), tax calculator, multiple currencies, and more.
• Business Elite ($159/month). Enhanced limits (i.e., unlimited storage and video hours), priority customer care.

There are three conventional Shopify plans, ranging from $39 to $399.

• Shopify Basic $39/month. Best for new eCommerce businesses. Online store, two staff accounts, unlimited listings, abandoned cart recovery, and other fundamental eCommerce features.
• Shopify Plan $105/month. Everything you need to expand your business. All the features of the Basic plan, plus increased limits (i.e., up to five staff accounts), professional standard sales reports, global selling support, shipping discounts, lower credit card rates, and more.
• Shopify Advanced $399/month. Best for scaling businesses that require advanced reporting. Includes third-party shipping rates, up to 15 staff accounts, reduced credit card rates, eCommerce automation, duty and import fees,  Shopify tax calculation feature, and custom market pricing.

Wix and Shopify offer additional options for requirements not met by conventional plans.

• Both Wix and Shopify offer Enterprise-level plans with custom pricing and Wix Enterprise and Shopify Plus features.
• Shopify Starter ($5/month) provides a starter store via mobile devices and messaging apps with basic order management, analytics, customer support, and one POS login.
• Shopify Retail ($60 /month) – same as Shopify POS (more below).

Wix pricing is more affordable but Shopify’s eCommerce features are more refined.

4. Technical features

	Wix	Shopify
Currencies	You can’t offer multiple currencies on your Wix store page.	Set up Shopify Payment for the multicurrency feature and offer prices in different currencies around the world.
Multilingual capabilities	Wix will be your best friend for additional languages. This platform supports 100+ languages.	Every Shopify standard plan comes with a multilingual selling option. Display your store in up to five different languages on separate URLs.
Loading speed	Wix is slower but suggests guidelines for website optimization, providing the possibility to maintain 85% to 90% speed.	According to research, Shopify is one of the fastest eCommerce sites in terms of loading time, which is an average of 1.3 seconds.

Shopify offers more currency features and creates faster websites than Wix, but Wix has better multilingual capabilities.

5. Analytics

Wix analytics allows you to customize your reports and focus on data that interests you. Get reports on website traffic, buyer behavior, and conversion rates. Access data analysis to make business decisions.

• Traffic Report Measures traffic by country, device, region, and landing page. See how users navigate to your website and within it.
• Sales Report Shows useful information about your sales and revenues, invoices, daily, weekly, monthly sales, and more.
• Behavior Report Shows how visitors interact with your online store. Which page they go to first, which pages are most viewed, and which lack pizzazz.

Depending on your plan, Shopify offers a selection of reporting features, from basic analysis to deep reviews on store activity, visitors, store speed, transactions, and more.

Both platforms offer useful data reports to help decision-making and business development. For a more detailed analysis, Shopify analytics is the better option.

6. Design features

Both Wix and Shopify are well known for their themes and templates. Let’s look at their prices, options, customization, and more.

Wix provides busy store owners with AI-powered, built-in designer tools to help design the storefront – the Wix Editor and Wix ADI.

There are more than 880 free designer-made Wix templates to use with the Wix Editor, plus a growing number of themes for Wix ADI.

Personalize to your liking, drag and drop, customize, add advanced features, and spruce it up to match your brand.

The Shopify Theme Store includes over 156 professionally designed eCommerce templates for your online store. 12 of Shopify’s themes are free, while premium options range from $170-380.

While they may seem quite pricey, the premium Shopify themes are artistically and functionally cost-effective, modern, customizable, and responsive on desktops, tablets, and phones.

Unlike Wix and most other website builders, you can switch your Shopify themes after you have built the website. 

Both Wix and Shopify offer quality themes. Wix’s templates are free and have an edge, but you can’t change them later. Shopify is more pricey and limited, but flexible.

7. Marketing and sales features

	Wix	Shopify
Email campaigns	High-quality email marketing tool with pre-made templates. Send three newsletters for free to 5000 subscribers or upgrade your plan for the email marketing tool Wix Ascend.	Recently introduced marketing tool Shopify Email for promoting updates, products, and campaigns. Send 10,000 emails per month for free.
Integrations	When it comes to social media, Wix offers integrations to top platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, and more.	Shopify offers a greater list of sales channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, eBay, Messenger, Handshake, and more.
Content marketing	Blogging is an easy and simple option for Wix users. Wix also has the upper hand with the autosave feature that prevents you from losing content if the site or computer crashes.	Shopify also has the blogging feature, but no autosave. While Wix allows you to use tags and categories in blog posts, Shopify only has tags.

Wix takes the lead regarding email marketing and posting content. Shopify recently introduced its email marketing tool but Wix is friendlier in marketing content.

8. SEO

Wix has worked hard to up its SEO game. A Wix site has no problem ranking on top of search engine results..

• Meta title
• Meta description
• Custom URLs
• Headings
• Image alt text
• Page Layout Optimization for mobile use
• Sitemap
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• Canonical tags and more.

Shopify SEO has some limitations regarding customization and duplicated product pages, but in general, it gives most of the same features and solutions as Wix. 

• XML Sitemap
• 301 redirects
• Mobile-Friendly setup
• Image Optimization
• Meta tags
• Meta title and description
• Canonical tags
• Google Analytics
• Multilingual URLs and more.

Both platforms are well-equipped with SEO tools and boosters. Wix has an edge with features incorporated from the former Ascend suite, which allows more in-depth customization and better ranking compared to Shopify SEO features.

9. Apps market

The Wix App Market offers a selection of over 300 apps and add-ons in six main categories: 

• Marketing. Grow your customer base with marketing tools, email, SEO, and analytics.
• Sell Online. Manage your Wix online store payments, inventory, accounting, and shipping.
• Services & Events. Create events and manage your business calendar.
• Media & Content. Add music, videos, and articles to your Wix website.
• Design Elements. Tools to customize the layout of your site.
• Communication. Connect using chat, feedback, forms, reviews & testimonials, and more.

While some apps are free, most are paid but affordable, ranging from $5 to $30.

The Shopify App Store allows you to browse through 8000+ third-party apps. These are divided into six categories.

• Finding products. Fulfillment, dropshipping, print-on-demand, buying wholesale, and finding suppliers. 
• Selling products. Product displays, pricing, gifts, order options, support, post-purchase services, customer accounts, and management.
• Orders and shipping. Managing orders, inventory, and fulfillment records.
• Store design. Images, media, store pages, navigation, internationalization, and even notifications.
• Marketing and conversion. Promotions, customer feedback, cart modifications, store alerts, analytics, advertising, email marketing, SEO, content marketing, and direct marketing.
• Store management. Operations, business insights to store development tools, security, policy, and tools for finances.

Both Wix and Shopify provide useful tools and apps for the ultimate eCommerce growth and experience. But the Shopify App Store has a much larger selection.

10. Customer support

The Wix support team provides professional service. Merchants can submit issue tickets for live support and request a callback on Wix. The support lines are available in English, French, German, and other languages.

Wix provides user-friendly and easy-to-understand instruction videos on various topics. These will provide quick answers to some of the most common FAQs.

Shopify merchants have help, guidance, or simple advice 24/7 by chat, email, or phone. With the live chat, there is no need to wait for a callback or email. Another great way to share experiences or get advice is by using the Shopify Forum. The Shopify community is, in their words, “Your place to connect with brands and makers, partners and commerce shakers.”

Both platforms provide great customer support for help and problem-solving. Shopify offers faster assistance via live chat and a sense of community through the forum.

11. POS systems

Both Shopify and Wix offer Point-of-Sales (POS) functions with their basic plans. 

The feature lets merchants accept payments through devices like smartphones, tablets, or barcode scanners while managing and updating inventory after a sale. 

Wix POS is a recent feature connected to Wix Payments available only in Canada and the US. 

It requires acquiring specific Wix hardware, which varies from Mobile Card Reader + Dock ($98.00) to Complete Retail POS Package ($1295.00). 

Wix sellers can also use POS by using Square or SumUp as payment providers. The feature requires that the Wix store and the payment processor accounts match currencies. Otherwise, the transaction will be declined.

• Square works for stores in Australia, Canada, the Falkland Islands, France, Japan, Ireland, the UK, and the US.
• SumUp is available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

In contrast, POS is built-in to the Basic Shopify plan, although with restricted functionality. Advanced Shopify features such as omnichannel, staff roles, collecting in-store, printing receipts, and multiple selling points need an $60 (monthly) upgrade to the POS Pro option.

Shopify POS is integrated with Shopify Payments (more above).

Shopify hardware ranges from a $49 Tap & Chip Card Reader to the $399 POS Go – a dedicated mobile device. Tap to pay on iPhone is free.

Shopify has an edge both for casual and experienced sellers needing POS and a broader geographic range. Wix POS can be more affordable and benefit sellers living in specific countries who occasionally sell on-site.